Merchant of Venice Part 2 live, now! #PPTPlaytime

Similar:Cost of Living (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 20) Alexander's Jolly Holodeck H…Rewatching ST:TNG Who’d love to see ano…EmpathyNipper Hears "His Master's Voice"As a kid growing up in Fairfax County, j…BusinessChurning Out More Non-profit Arts PromosAs part of my volunteer work for a local…AestheticsI have for some reason reached another #duolingo milestone.CultureAnother sold-out Midsummer…

87,000 Missing Deaths: Tracking the True Toll of the Coronavirus Outbreak

Sobering report from the New York Times, providing evidence that COVID-19 deaths have been over-reported. Mortality data in the middle of a pandemic is not perfect. In most places, the disparities between the official death counts and the total rise in deaths reflect limited testing for the virus rather than intentional undercounting. Officially, about 355,000 people had…

Very interesting adaptation of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. #pptlaytime @thepublicpgh

Similar:First steps towards reconstructing a 30-year-old simulation. Marking the locations of the …First steps towards reconstructing a 30-…AestheticsThe heir to the throne of Gondor and and a scruffy looking nerf herder are handing out can… PersonalState officials: Bushy Run staff must consult with Native groups before staging reenactmen…When my kids were younger, trips to Busy…CultureBy Inferno's…

Write instructions for busy grouches.

Updating the graphic for a writing handout on how to write instructions, which I created in 2000. Similar:Jane Eyre and the Invention of the SelfThose who remember Jane Eyre solely as r…BooksTerminated for Reading an Allen Ginsberg Poem?In February two students complained abou…CultureThe Alot is Better Than You at EverythingThere is no Englilsh word “alot.” That i…Amusing10…

In a literature class, the author’s words matter more than the author’s life and times, or our own feelings and values.

Updating the graphic for a resource I created in 2012. Similar:How Zuckerberg’s Facebook is like Gutenberg’s printing pressHistorian Niall Ferguson notes that Sili…BooksMount St. Mary's president fires two faculty members, one with tenureMount St. Mary’s fires two faculty membe…AcademiaGettysburg Address event marks 150th anniversary of President Lincoln’s historic speechOn the Civil War battlefield where Presi…CultureMask…

Trump, Obama seem equally disinterested in portrait unveiling — but journalism takes hits from both sides

On social media recently I saw people mocking Trump for “refusing” to unveil the traditional presidential portrait of Obama, and I saw people attacking “the fake news media” for pushing a narrative designed to make Trump look bad. The original NBC story that broke this item accurately states that neither Trump nor Obama is interested…

Déjà Q (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 13) Amusing, insightful study of human nature

(Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break) The meddlesome entity Q, stripped of his powers, throws himself at the mercy of Captain Picard: “in all the universe you’re the closest thing I have to a friend, Jean-Luc.” Lots of well-done banter and self-absorbed patter from actor John De Lancie. While Worf and Crusher have memorable reactions to…

I just found an abandoned blog draft, dated 2011, on economics in early computer games. Published!

I just found a post on economics in early computer games, tucked away as a “Draft” in my WordPress database, dated Jan 2011. I’m not sure why I never published it. The web page I was responding to has disappeared from the Internet, so I’ve linked to the Wayback Archive instead. Similar:William Shatner: My Problem…

Slow flyby of a scout shop. Starfield backdrop; particle-based engine exhaust; hull uses a Boolean modifier to cut out portholes; cockpit frame and text labels use shrinkwrap. #Blender3D

More progress as I continue to level up my #blender3d skills. Similar:It's a Didactic Day in the Neighborhood: Mister Rogers and Educational IdeologyI recently lamented that my kids are gro…AestheticsEditors and editorial board quit top linguistics journal to protest subscription feesWhen I publish as a scholar, my goal is …AcademiaCursor*10Great free Flash game, emulated at…

Synchronous Online Classes: 10 Tips for Engaging Students

Every time I have taught an online class, I have made it asynchronous. I’m blogging these synchronous teaching tips so I can find them again when I’m prepping my fall classes (which will likely be HyFlex). The tips offered here won’t miraculously eliminate the initial awkwardness of virtual class sessions, but they’ll help. And over…

Carolyn Gombell Is Not a Real Person: #JusticeforCarolyn Is a Campaign Against Twitter Refusing to Delete Trump’s Tweets Accusing Joe Scarborough of Murdering Lori Klausutis

Fascinating use of social media. To be clear, this story about “Carolyn Gombell” is a fabrication, intended to spark Twitter to take action against people (such as Donald Trump) who use Twitter to publicize unfounded accusations. Will that matter to people who share it? It’s parody accounts, not journalists, who are retweeting this story as…

New York Times runs just 1000 names of the nearly 100,000 Americans who have already died from COVID-19

Similar:Journalists should not amplify the ableist biases of untrained sourcesBeing a cop, lawyer, patriot, protestor,…CultureThe Interactive Fiction CompetitionDownload and Play The Games of the 2014 …Current_EventsHow We Found Tom Price’s Private JetsGreat behind-the-scenes story of the har…Current_EventsHow Bill Gates pulled off the swift Common Core revolutionWhile I appreciate the efficiency of uni…CultureMan Infected with Ebola…

Looking forward to Part 2 of #PPTPlaytime’s production “The Rivals” (live… now!)

Similar:Facebook Ad Refreshes Interrupt the Composition ProcessSo I’m trying to edit a Facebook status,…BusinessShe was a musical ingenue Sunday, filmed a slasher movie past midnight Monday, and was pre…AcademiaStill shot from a flyover video that's been taking about 3 minutes to render each fra…AestheticsHeadlines: Why editors matter in journalism.Headlines are important. (Send an editor…Amusing11 Compound…

Dogmeat and I may yet win this game.

Yes, this was the decisive moment. I ended up cleaning my son out when he landed here later in the game. Similar:Mechanical innards for a Steampunk set piece. #Blender3D #greebleshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oChXOu8C…AestheticsI baked about 12 million vertices of steampunk control panel geometry into a flat plane wi…PersonalMy virtual army of grey capsules is just barely smart enough…

Leveling up my skills in #blender3D.

Using invisible shapes to cut holes in the hull, and a shrinkwrap modifier to align the cockpit frame and the glass. Similar:Q-Less (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 6) Shenanigans with Vash and QRewatching ST:DS9 In the teaser, Bash…DesignHasbro removes embedded typeface from My Little Pony website after copyright infringement … Considering the scope of the…

I just bought Diamond City.

Similar:8 (Short Halloween film by Josh Reardon)My daughter and I appear in this short f…AestheticsSad that NASA is taking a back seat to a private company, but still nerding over an Americ…BusinessI'm not showing you my email inbox, or my laundry pile, or the state of my soul. Just…PersonalMy undergraduate connects the Leontes/Polixenes conflict in…